UNDER THE COVERS

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (09-23-21)- Please remember small business in your town during this coronavirus pandemic

     When I was in college my rock band did all original material. We were pretty good, people loved us, bar owners liked us, and we averaged about $30 dollars each a gig. If I was working my way through college I would have had to moonlight as a waitress and possibly as an exotic dancer also, because I had textbooks that cost $40 dollars each. I offered to play two sets at the bookstore, but they only took cash, even after I also offered to dance exotically.

     Back then tribute bands were considered a novelty act, like a magician who works with cats. There was a band called Beatlemania that performed on Broadway in the '70s, with the mop-top wigs and the pointy boots and the skinny ties and players who tried to look the part. Whenever I hear about a Beatles tribute act I always check out the Ringo guy first to see what I'm in for. If he looks like an accountant for Ernst & Young, I strap myself in for a long ride, because he could either be a really good drummer or a really bad accountant. Who possibly works with cats.

     We used to look down on the tribute bands, and scorn them as cheap imitations of the real thing. And then something happened that nobody saw coming: the passage of time. First those super-groups that we loved broke up, then they had a solo album, then they got married, then they got a divorce (repeat as necessary), then they had a drug problem, then they got sober, then they did a reunion tour and then they died. When I saw Blood, Sweat and Tears a few years ago, there was a ten-piece band on stage and not one of them was in the original line-up. Blood, Sweat and Tears is now essentially a tribute act to itself.

     I went to a Fleetwood Mac tribute act a couple years ago, and darned if the Stevie Nicks girl wasn't going with the Lindsay Buckingham guy. In fact they announced their engagement right onstage. If you're going that far into the zeitgeist of the original Fleetwood Mac era, I wish you good luck because I already fast-forwarded to the ending, and I just know somebody's going to get hurt. And I'm not sure how or why but it's probably going to be me.

     If you're going go that route as a musician, be aware that wardrobe might set you back a pretty penny. Performing as Stevie Nicks, you'll have to shop at a Wiccan store for the essentials, a Renaissance Faire for the accessories, then stop at a magician's store for the hat. If your boyfriend happens to be performing as Slash in a Guns n' Roses act you can share the hat. If you're going to do Kiss, those outfits ain't cheap, and you'll probably have to do your own makeup. If you're playing the part of Peter Criss, for god's sake put your cat out of the room before you paint that face on or you're never going to hear the end of it.

     And now the tide has turned and the tribute bands are the ones raking it in. Some of them perform the material live much better than the original bands ever did. I've heard it myself- the bass player for Letterman started a Beatles tribute band that does flawless live performances of the studio records, complete with strings and horns. And when Journey front man Steve Perry refused to come back out on the road, the rest of the band plucked a guy from a tribute group in the Philippines who knew all the words in English, and he's been on tour with them ever since. 

     They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but in this case it's also the mother of invention (they say that too, but usually not at the same time). If you want to see a Tom Petty show these days your're going to have to find yourself a tribute band that knows four chords and can put them in 200 different orders. I'd be surprised if someone doesn't start a band paying tribute to some of the best tribute bands. I'd start one myself, but I'm afraid that my form of flattery may not be the sincerest.